Top 50 - 2008

11. Labatt Food Service

San Antonio, Texas
Year founded: 1968President/ceo/owner: Blair Labatt
Website: www.labattfood.com
4 distribution centers
5,500 accounts
10,100 SKUs
100% national brands
10.2% street accounts salesBest innovation: A group of business analysts, making use of a new set of business intelligence databases, is responsible for analysis of business problems and for the design of new systems. This group has become the gatekeepers for new system development in every area of the company.Other news: New warehouse in Lubbock in 2005. New 148,000-sq.-ft. warehouse in Houston opening February 2007.Fuel prices: Added fuel surcharges, improved routing, and aggressive backhauling.High-tech operations systems: Have done warehouse management system bar coding and delivery bar coding for over 10 years, and voice technology for four years. Exploring possible RFID application in cross-docking.Key issues this year: Our issues are continuous restructuring, hiring, training, and rewriting all systems to respond to and anticipate continuous strong growth. Our goals are simple - increase sales, diminish expenses, reduce errors to provide a superior customer experience, and institutionalize to secure the future for all our stakeholders.